Hot Topics:

Border Partners Education Center opens door once shut

By Marjorie Lilly

For the Headlight

Posted:
08/27/2014 07:17:29 PM MDT

The Border Partners Education Center in Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico was started in March with five to seven children showing up daily for lessons. By mid-May, the center was catering to at least 25 children a day. (Marjorie Lilly Photo)

Editor's note: Freelance writer Marjorie Lilly spend time wiht the Border Partners in Palomas, a nonproft humanitarian group founded by Peter and Polly Edmunds of Deming. This is the final installment of Lilly's three-art series "On the Border."

Border Partners Education Center started up in early March in Palomas with from five to seven students showing up daily. By mid-May, word had spread and about 25 kids were coming.

In August, the numbers varied a lot, but as many as 60 have arrived on some days. They come between 3 and 6 p.m. on weekdays to a new room built onto the Palomas library.

The Education Center, or Learning Center, as the English-speaking teachers tend to call it, is one of the projects of the non-profit organization Border Partners, run by Polly and Peter Edmunds of Deming. It has helped many school kids.

One 13-year-old has learned to read for the first time. A 7-year-old learned to say the alphabet in English overnight. A 12-year-old is so good at computers that he hacks into one of his instructors' computers in the evening to say "Hi."

Three- and 4-year-olds bring a handmade booklet of English vocabulary words home to their parents for them to learn. One girl found something about yodeling online and wants to yodel. This cracks up Sheila Bjeletich, the forever supportive promoter of the project, and one of the originators.

Advertisement

The sign out in front of the library invites people to come and learn English, but a lot more is going on at the Center. There are 11 desktop computers, three laptops and 15 tablets that were bought with a grant from the Rotary Club, according to Juan Rascon, the coordinator of the school. Children learn how to use computers, learn from programs on the computers and sometimes learn to program computers.

The Center is pretty informal, but according to Ruth Hodiah, the schedule usually involves spending time first on the Duolingo program online, which teaches English as a second language.

Second, they work on homework from the Palomas schools, giving the teachers a good idea of where the students need extra help, whether it's math or Spanish or history.

Third, they learn English at the blackboard with native English speakers. Hodiah tells about one student, Dayan, who has taught a bit of English to adults who have begun to trickle into the sessions.

Toward the end of the time available, the kids gravitate toward computer games. "Then they can play," says Hodiah. "They need to play."

Some of the kids at the Center have been selling gum on the streets or washing windshields. Some have problems at home with hunger, violence, or substance abuse. Some girls may be perilously close to becoming prostitutes to support their families. But they're all welcome. "We need to keep them off the streets," Juan emphasizes. "We teach them with lots of love, and discipline at the same time," says Hodiah. "This is a stability thing. We teach them to respect other people, and to help others be what they can be."

Bjetelich says one middle school girl came in once after "something horrible" had happened at home. Hodiah spent some time with her arm around her, and Bjetelich knew she was meant to work at the Education Center.

Hodiah teaches English with her sister Sheri Macho. "We came to Palomas to get our teeth fixed three years ago and stayed here," she said laughing. The only teaching experience they have is the home schooling they did with their children.

Rascon was deported a few years ago from the U.S, after living here since he was 14. He spent eight months in a detention center and was returned to the Mexican side at Matamoros, Tamaulipas during a very violent time. he said it is hard for him to live apart from his children and other family. Rascon doesn't have a teaching degree either, but is devoted and caring. He spends a lot of time collecting clothing, food and whatever else is needed to distribute to the kids and their families.

He was "very depressed" about the violence for a while, but teaching at the Center and caring for his aging mother have given him a sense of purpose. "I'm a very positive person," he said. The warmth and dedication of these people probably draws many children to the school. Every child needs to be bilingual on the border, on both sides," said Bjetelich. "English opens so many doors for the kids here, especially in online courses."

She has taught street kids in Palomas on computers, calling her students "the digital kids." Bjetelich takes trips to Mexico, and is trying to get a "digital school" started near Mexico City. But she's making the most progress here. In he Palomas public schools, she says, "They have limited computer use — for an hour only." At the Education Center, they might be able to work for three hours.

Bjetelich is an enthusiastic promoter of the Khan Academy online, which has thousands of free courses in many languages, especially English. She's worked closely with Polly and Peter Edmunds of Border Partners on this project. "We work together," she says. "They've been fantastic. They never told me what to do."

The girl who learned to read at 13, Dulce Maria Lopez, is interested in science and biology. She's planning to go to Casas Grandes for both high school and college, where she'll learn to be a nurse.

A 10-year-old girl, Andrea Santillanes Garcia, stated that she'll go to college in Michigan, where she'll learn to repair computers. She already fixes computers at the Education Center. A graduate from the prepa, or high school, is going to study computers at the Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez, partly through the experience he got at the Education Center.